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"I see everything."
The field of robotics took another giant leap forward recently, with the creation of Rex, a "bionic man" with fully functional artificial human organs and lifelike features, bringing science reality ever closer to the science fiction depicted in movies. As incredible as it sounds, humanoid robots, or androids (just "droids" if you're George Lucas), like Rex have been appearing on screen since well before Czech writer Karel Capek gave the English language a name for them in his 1920 sci-fi play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), with the human simulacrum Hadaly a featured character in the 1896 French movie L'Eve Futur (The Future Eve). Hundreds of movies have included androids — and their part man, part machine, cyborg cousins — since Hadaly, but which ones were the best? Help us rank the movies with the coolest, the baddest, the sexiest, the deadliest, the most terrifying androids and cyborgs.
Rate the Top 10 Best Android & Cyborg Movies >>
Posted 03.06.13 by BrentJS -
"The force is strong with this one."
The new year has brought one piece of incredible movie news after another for sci-fi fans, but none has sparked as much debate as Disney’s plans for its recently acquired Lucasfilm assets and the Star Wars movie franchise. January was dominated by questions and rumors about who would be chosen to direct the sequel to Return of the Jedi, currently titled simply Star Wars: Episode VII, with the month closing out with fiery debates over whether the man who reignited the Star Trek franchise for Paramount, J.J. Abrams, was the right choice to reignite Star Wars for Disney. Only eight days into February and the internet is practically melting down over the news that Disney is also developing solo movies featuring a young Han Solo and the mysterious bounty hunter Boba Fett.
With Star Wars on our minds, we decided that this would be a fitting time to find out how you would rank the original trilogy of movies — Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi — against other sci-fi movies of the same era. Put down those sabacc cards, pour yourself a glass of blue milk and choose the best sci-fi movies of the 1970s and '80s.
Rate the Top 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies (1970s - 1980s) >>
Posted 02.08.13 by BrentJS -
Which Movies Were Game Changers?
Hollywood has been mining literature for source material for years, often with excellent results — 11 literary adaptations were nominated for Academy Awards in 2012 alone — and comic books have inspired several of the most popular and successful movies in recent years. Video games, on the other hand, have proven to be difficult to successfully translate to film. Gamers are often more interested in a game's graphics or the ability to earn achievements than in its plot, so there is often little for the screenwriters to draw upon. As Corey May, co-founder of Sekretagent Productions explained to CNN, "It often comes down to money, as movie studios frequently choose to make films based on the franchises that sell the best, not those with the most cinematic potential."
Still, the success of the Resident Evil franchise — $893 million worldwide and counting— and the prospect of enticing the hundreds of millions of gamers around the world to turn out to see a movie based upon their favorite game keeps Hollywood going back to the video game well for more. Only days ago, it was announced that Ubisoft and New Regency's Assassin's Creed adaptation is moving forward with Michael Fassbender headlining, and there are dozens of other adaptations currently in development, which should be great news for movie fans and video game fans alike. Have there been some turkeys? Absolutely. More than a few, but, despite what CNN's video game expert may think, movies based on video games don't all "stink". In fact, some of them are downright badass. Help us select the video game movies that defied expectations by entertaining us instead of making us groan.
Rate the Top 10 Best Video Game Movie Adaptations >>
Posted 10.26.12 by BrentJS -
Disney wants to take another trip to the grid and, this time, they don't want to wait 28 years to do it.
THR reports that Disney has hired screenwriter David DiGilio (Eight Below) to write a third installment of the franchise, which began in 1982 with Tron and continued in last year's Tron: Legacy. Digilio wouldn't be the first writer hired to take a pen to Tron 3 (working title).
Tron: Legacy screenwriters Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis were hired to write the script for Tron 3 about eight months before Legacy opened. However, they're apparently too busy working on their upcoming ABC TV show Once Upon a Time, so DiGilio was brought in to replace the duo.
what's in store for Tron 3? >> Posted 06.08.11 by Ryan -
Disney didn't wait for Tron: Legacy to earn almost $400 million at the worldwide box office before setting up another sequel. The studio hired Legacy screenwriters Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz to write the script for Tron 3 (working title) eight months before Legacy reached theaters.
In January, rumors began to spread that a teaser trailer for Tron 3 would be included in Legacy's DVD and Blu-Ray release on April 5, followed by a description of the scenes that comprise the teaser.
For those still doubting that Tron 3 is in development, Legacy director Joseph Kosinski told Assignment X that the draft of the sequel is still in the works.
We’re working on the story right now. Once we get a script we’re all really happy with, we’ll take it to the powers that be and see if we can go back to the grid.
where will the third Tron pick up? >> Posted 04.01.11 by Ryan -
For those that think there's been enough sequels and remakes coming out of Hollywood, we have bad news: they're making more. It's easy to see why remakes and sequels continue to get made. The top four grossing movies for 2010 were, in order, Toy Story 3, Alice in Wonderland, Iron Man 2, and Twilight Saga: Eclipse, all sequels or remakes. The remakes of The Karate Kid and Clash of the Titans came in 11th and 12th, proving the box office value of remakes.
Almost a month in to 2011 and there are plenty of remakes and sequels in the works, including some many might have never guessed were being suggested, such as the remake of 1986's About Last Night....
Variety reports producer Will Gluck (Easy A) and Sony Screen Gems are working on a remake of the romantic comedy, which starred Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. Based on the 1974 David Mamet play Sexual Perversity in Chicago, the original kept the play's opening monologue (performed by Jim Belushi) and essentially tossed out the rest, while earning $38 million at the box office. Gluck will supervise the hiring of a screenwriter and director for the remake.
A Star is Born (Again), The Collection, and Tron 3 >> Posted 01.23.11 by Ryan -
We're well seasoned when it comes to suspending disbelief and buying into a fairly incredible premise. But as technology becomes more advanced, it seems movie storylines are becoming even more implausible and outrageous. Disney's Tron: Legacy follows an abandoned son (Garrett Hedlund) who is transported into a computer world in order to find his missing father (Jeff Bridges). Digitizing a human being and placing him in a cyberworld could be a difficult plot for audiences to swallow ... if they hadn't already bought it in the 1982 original.
But Tron isn't the only movie to proclaim that "technology can do anything." We look back on 10 movies that take technology to the limit — and then kept going and going.
Is your favorite on the list? >>
Posted 12.17.10 by reelz -
Disney has been releasing visually stunning new posters for its upcoming 3D sci-fi adventure movie, Tron: Legacy, regularly since the beginning of the year. The 28-years-in-the-making sequel to Tron looks nothing like its predecessor thanks to the incredible advances in computer graphics technology and the design esthetic of director Joseph Kosinski, but that doesn't mean that Disney wants to distance the two movies too much. A perfect example of this is the latest poster for Tron: Legacy, which features Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde as Sam Flynn and Quorra striking a pose that hearkens back to the classic Tron movie poster featuring Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan as Tron and Yori.
Also check out this new motion poster for the movie >> Posted 10.30.10 by BrentJS -
When Joseph Kosinski was hoping to make the jump from directing commercials to directing features, he put together a "Visual Effects Concept Test" reel for Disney that showed a CGI version of Jeff Bridges' Tron character, Clu; it was enough to convince Disney to move forward with Tron: Legacy with him at the helm. Compared to the graphics seen in the most recent Tron: Legacy trailer, the graphics in the "Test" were rather crude, but they still managed to convey the tone Kosinski hoped to bring to the world of Tron and the possibilities of rendering realistic versions of actors using digital technology. In a recent interview with MTV, Bridges spoke about how technology enticed him to star in Tron and to return to the property decades later in Tron: Legacy.
Bridges was wowed by the technology >> Posted 08.01.10 by BrentJS -
When Steven Lisberger conceived of the idea that would eventually become the Walt Disney Pictures movie Tron back in the 1970s, his intention was to open up the then-closed world of computer games to a much wider audience. He had a great deal of difficulty finding financing for his idea and was turned down by Warner Bros., MGM and Columbia Pictures before Disney took a leap of faith and hired him to create a test reel of his live-action and computer animation mash-up.
There was no way of knowing it then, but Lisberger's ideas would herald in the future of digital animation techniques so prevalent today. The plot of Tron, which revolves around a computer programmer (played by Jeff Bridges) who gets sucked into the virtual reality world of his computer game, was also forward thinking when you consider how commonly our everyday interactions with one another are conducted virtually, whether via email, social networking sites, or online gaming. Lisberger spoke about the issues of technology and social isolation at the recent "Comic-Tron" party hosted by Disney during the San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) and said that hope can be found in Tron: Legacy.
MORE >> Posted 07.29.10 by BrentJS